"Love for one's family always has specific forms. In modern Ukraine, in a whirlwind of dramatic events, you understand this especially clearly. There are whole worlds behind short shouts of slogans and formulas of patriotic words, and one of them is the world of native national literature. The outstanding works of Ukrainian writers of the past, collected here under a common cover, are not just a set of texts, the study of which is provided by the school curriculum, but also a good opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of Ukrainian people of different times and to realize what features, feelings and situations are embedded in the cultural the experience of Ukrainians.The works published in the book belong to different genres and different stages of the history of literature. Some of them convey the whimsical, colorful, dramatic, and sometimes even comic atmosphere of the Ukrainian past, with its ethnographic flavor and bright portraits of characters against the background of ancient life. This is a series of literary images, beloved and recognizable, like embroidery. They are remembered for a lifetime and come to mind as universal signs of certain situations - the sad and cheerless centurion Zabryokh or the quarrel of the Kaidashes over a pear, which eventually dried up, entered our consciousness and into proverbs. The cheerful and observant character of a Ukrainian has been reflected in literature since long ago and forms one of the national signs..."